Japanese Gamer Leaves SNES Turned On For 20 Years To Keep Save Data

You may think you're a dedicated fan of classic video games, but know that the bar has been raised to an incredible height. Unless you've managed to keep an aging console turned on for 20 straight years, you've got nothing on this Japanese gamer who goes by Wanikun on Twitter. All in an effort to prevent his precious save data from being erased, Wanikun has managed to keep his Nintendo Super Famicom (known as the SNES in the US) powered on with the game plugged in for two decades now.

The prized game of Wanikun's obsession is the Japanese title Umihara Kawase, a side-scrolling platformer that featured some impressive rope-swinging mechanics for a 2D game, first released in 1994. In a recent tweet, Wanikun says he's kept his Famicom turn on for over 20 years, making up more than 180,000 hours.

The reason he's afraid that turning it off will lead to the loss of his save data is because cartridge-based games from the '90s stored such information in SRAM. A cartridge's RAM is powered by a small battery, which gets used up a tiny amount each time a console is turned off, not to mention would be rare to last for 20 years or more.

It's definitely hard to believe that Wanikun's console hasn't fallen victim to a power outage in over two decades, or even some kind of parts failure within the Famicom itself. But besides that, the real question is about how valuable that save data actually is. How many times has Wanikun played Umihara Kawase in those 20 years? How often does he plan to play it in the future? If he doesn't, then this really seems like nothing more than a refusal to let go.

SOURCE RocketNews24